1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to user interfaces for electronic devices and relates more particularly to a system and method for implementing a user interface for use with Japanese characters.
2. Description of the Background Art
The efficient implementation of user interfaces is an important consideration for designers, manufacturers and users of electronic devices and systems. To achieve maximum effectiveness, a user interface may advantageously display information to a system user in the user""s primary language. The English language is generally written using an alphabet of twenty-six letters derived from the Romans. Other written languages, however, may employ significantly greater numbers of written characters. An example of a written language that requires a relatively large number of written characters is the Japanese language.
Japanese typically utilizes several different writing systems in conjunction with each other to form a single unified written language system. For example, Hiragana and Katakana are parallel phonetic systems that each use over forty different characters. Hiragana is used primarily to write words of Japanese origin, while Katakana is used primarily to write words of non-Japanese origin. In addition, Kanji is an ideographic system of writing which utilizes thousands of different characters which each typically correspond to a specific Japanese word. Furthermore, modern written Japanese occasionally incorporates foreign words written in the previously-mentioned standard Roman alphabet.
From the foregoing discussion, it is apparent that languages like Japanese typically utilize a significantly greater number of written characters than languages like English which require only the twenty-six letters of the Roman alphabet. Therefore, implementing a Japanese user interface to support an extended number of written characters will require special system design considerations to effectively and efficiently convey written information to a system user.
For example, conventional Japanese fonts typically are encoded using a two-byte digital encoding method to accommodate the large number of characters. In contrast, fonts that use only the Roman characters may be encoded using only one byte of digital information. The double-byte encoding thus requires substantially greater system memory to contain the encoded Japanese fonts. The increased memory requirements have a detrimental economic impact on system manufacturing costs. The greater physical size of an increased-capacity memory may also present design problems in implementing small-sized or portable electronic devices.
Furthermore, many computer programming languages (for example, the C programming language) are designed for use with single-byte text string encoding systems. A double-byte encoding system thus adds significant complexity to the overall development process because many standard software routines would then have to be rewritten to achieve software compatibility.
A small-sized electronic device may typically have a limited keyboard or other input device for selecting and inputting Japanese characters. Such a limited input device may frequently lack sufficient input keys and features to efficiently view and select characters from among the substantial number of possible choices found in written Japanese.
Prior art solutions to the foregoing problems have included electronic devices that supported an extended range of Japanese written characters with the associated problems discussed above. Alternatively, other prior art electronic devices have severely restricted the supported Japanese character set to only a small subset of written Japanese characters (Hiragana only, for example). Therefore, for the reasons discussed in the foregoing section, an improved system and method are needed to implement a user interface for use with Japanese characters.
In accordance with the present invention, a system and method are disclosed to implement a user interface for use with Japanese characters. More specifically, the present invention includes a system and method for encoding Japanese characters for efficient storage in an electronic device.
Initially, a standard font is encoded and stored in a digital data format using a host computer. Selected text strings are input to the host computer using a computer keyboard or other such input device. In the preferred embodiment, when the host computer initially receives the selected text strings, they are encoded in a standard double-byte digital data format.
Next, a font-encoder compiler program in the host computer sequentially encodes the selected text strings to produce a corresponding output file containing the encoded text strings in a single-byte digital data format. The font-encoder compiler also creates a series of custom fonts in accordance with the present invention.
In practice, the font-encoder compiler sequentially examines each character in the selected text strings to determine whether each examined character is already contained within the standard font or any previously-created custom fonts. If an examined character is already listed, then the font-encoder compiler encodes a location reference pointing to the previously-created font location of the examined character, and then examines the next character in the selected text string.
If, however, the examined character is not already listed in the standard font or any previously-created custom fonts, then the font-encoder compiler determines the optimal location for storing the new character into the custom fonts. The font-encoder compiler may either add the new character to an empty location within an existing custom font, or may create a new custom font to contain the new character and other subsequent new characters. The encoded text strings, the standard font and the custom fonts are then provided to the electronic device. A font manager in the electronic device may then selectively access the standard font and the custom fonts to display the encoded texts strings on the user interface.
The present invention also includes a system and method for enabling a user to input character selections into the electronic device. In practice, a user of the electronic device initially enters a text edit mode to display the basic text edit dialog on the user interface. Then, the user chooses a character category which is preferably displayed in a first-level selection menu. In the preferred embodiment, character categories include upper and lower case Roman, Arabic numerals, Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji.
If the user selects Hiragana or Katakana, then a desired articulation group is next selected from the first-level selection menu. The user may locate the desired articulation group by scrolling through the first-level selection menu until a character representing the desired articulation group is within a fixed-position selection window. Finally, the user chooses a specific character from the selected articulation group which appears in a second-level selection menu displayed on the user interface. In practice, the user may position a moveable selection window to select the desired character. Therefore, the present invention more efficiently and effectively implements a user interface for use with Japanese characters.